Can Trump flip the unions?

The thick-necked union boss, who’s short on manners and long on tough talk and machismo, is in many ways an endangered American archetype. Amid rampant political correctness and professionalisation, they seem like anachronisms from a lost age; Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, could be one of the last living specimens: his earthy ways evoke the Jimmy Hoffas and George Meanys of yore. In his speech at the Republican National Convention in the summer, O’Brien praised Donald Trump and spoke of a different political future for labour, one in which the Republicans were as attentive to workers’ concerns as Democrats had been.

When the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced recently that their union was withholding endorsement of either of the presidential candidates, pundits and political operatives alike saw it as further proof of the very thing O’Brien was talking about: an ongoing realignment of working-class voters, away from their traditional Democratic allies and toward the Trump coalition. Indeed, the stated reason for the union’s decision was the apparent desire on the part of a large segment of the rank-and-file membership to go with the Republican candidate. The GOP is said to be transforming into a “workers’ party”, just as college-educated professionals cluster around Kamala Harris.